The Missed Opportunities of Ezekiel from Total Drama Island
“And the home-school, misogynistic, country boy, Ezekiel!”- Chris McClean, Total Drama Island (I Triple Dog Dare You)
I love the Total Drama franchise. Ever since I watched the first season way back in 2008 on Cartoon Network when I was in the fourth grade, it was love at first sight. My sister and I used to watch this show religiously every Thursday on “Har Har Tharsdays” to see which contestant would get eliminated next and which contestant would win the cash prize up until the middle of Total Drama Action (for my sister) and right around the first few episodes of Total Drama World Tour (for me). Some of my favorite characters from the series are Izzy, Leshawna, Lindsay, Duncan, Noah, and quite a few more (My sister’s favorite was Gwen.). But I feel there’s one more contestant that has a lot of missed opportunities to explore. That character, of course, is Ezekiel.
Now, the whole point of Total Drama is that every contestant is a stereotype of some sort- Izzy is the psychopath, Lindsay is the dumb blonde, Duncan is the delinquent, Noah is the smart and sarcastic guy, Gwen is the goth girl, and Leshawna is, in Heather’s (the mean, queen bee) words, “the ghetto-glamor, too-tights-pants-wearing, rap-star wannabe”. Ezekiel is the homeschool kid who’s never had any exposure to the outside world until the beginning of Total Drama Island. That’s pretty evident when Ezekiel says something that shocks and disgusts every person (especially the girls) on his team in the second episode after the Killer Bass loses the first challenge.
“Well, I don’t see why we lost, eh. They’re the ones that have six girls.”
Yeah… it was no shocker to see this guy be the first person to be eliminated from the island. Sexism is not cool, dudes. Not even by 2000s standards. But why would Ezekiel say something like that? Where did he get these opinions from anyway? Well, let me remind you that Ezekiel has been homeschooled for (I’m assuming) his entire life, so hasn’t been able to meet a lot of people with different perspectives and viewpoints until Total Drama. Therefore, I think it’s safe to say he learned this behavior from someone in his family- most likely his father.
Sexism obviously shouldn’t be tolerated, and you’re right about that. So, how would I resolve this issue? Easy- I would try to make sure Ezekiel unlearns his sexism by examples of the girls on the island. I think there can be a lot of drama surrounding his points of view and where he learned his behavior from, so why not? I already know Bridgette and Eva kind of proved him wrong after losing the first challenge; maybe he can learn some more from the other girls. And by learning some more, I don’t exactly mean him teaming up with Lindsay and Beth in the last episode of the first series because the girls didn’t want to team up with Heather. I mean, maybe he can get called out on his remarks from the other girls like Leshawna or Gwen. Hell, maybe we can even have some comedic karma via him getting slapped or punched by some other girl when he’s being sexist. We got that with Cody in the episode “Up the Creek” when he wouldn’t get the hint that Gwen wasn’t gonna date him, and it was funny.
Of course, Ezekiel needs to be eliminated at some point. And when he does get eliminated, he’s going to be affected by his time on Total Drama and the effects of reality TV. And to the show’s credits, that is shown. In his character biography in World Tour, he does say this-
“…my dad did tell me once to always protect the women. Which I don’t really get, ’cause they’re all a lot stronger than me.”
Well, at least that’s a little bit of progress, which is better than nothing. Now, let’s talk about the rapper persona he developed after being eliminated from Total Drama Island. I guess after his exposure to a whole lot of people, he must’ve found some of their aesthetics cool, especially maybe Leshawna’s and DJ’s aesthetics. Also, he has a crush on Bridgette even though Bridgette is in a relationship with Geoff. Yeah… sounds like a lot of white guys I know.
Anyways, let’s talk about how Ezekiel’s white rapper persona could’ve been used as a fuel of drama. His arrogance and annoyance was used a bit in the first episode of World Tour, but I feel there wasn’t enough of that. Sure, Noah and especially Chris McClean call him out and make fun of him, but I think more characters should’ve called him out on his white rapper front, especially characters like Leshawna. Leshawna could’ve called him out on his false and cultural appropriating persona because unlike her, he’s not black and he’s not from “the hood”. Hell, maybe even DJ could’ve told Ezekiel to not act like something he’s not. And if Ezekiel refuses (which would be a huge likelihood), then he’ll be eliminated. He’ll probably be eliminated before the teams merge with each other, so there’s no way he’ll ever win.
It’s a darn shame how Ezekiel really did turn out- into a wild monster. The reason why I find this a shame is because Total Drama could’ve had some drama surrounding Ezekiel’s background and behavior. We could’ve had some character exploration and deconstruction with him. We even could’ve seen the consequences of his behavior as comedic relief. But no, Ezekiel gets turned into a monster, and that’s about it…
Hopefully, the Total Drama series will explore and deconstruct a character whose behavior could be similar to Ezekiel’s. That would be nice to see.
